Kinzua Bridge State Park

I'm not as taken with the Kinzua Bridge as many folks around here are. I don't have fond childhood memories of it. I never rode my motorcycle across it drunkenly, as so many citizens of Kane and Mt. Jewett did back in the 70s and 80s. No one ever dared me to walk across its railroad ties, 300 feet above the valley below. To me, it's always been a colossal railroad bridge laying half in ruins on the floor of an equally ruined forest...in perhaps the lamest PADCNR "state park" in an otherwise outstanding system.

Now, I'm all about ruination and the sad, jagged remains of bygone industry. (To my knowledge, I'm the only person documenting the ghost towns of the Allegheny.) So you might think I would have always liked Kinzua Bridge. I do admit that there's a stark beauty about the half-fallen structure, like the skeleton of some oversized dinosaur, sprawling where it collapsed, spread across a tornado-ravaged landscape. It speaks to my sense of human tragedy and my deep, abiding conviction that everything we raise will eventually fall. And there's something riveting about ruination on such a massive scale. It's hard to take your eyes off the spot where the remaining portion of the bridge meets thin air, as if daring you to take that last step, as if saying, "Here, I'll take you this far, and after that, you're on your own." As Bugs Bunny used to say, "That last step's a doozy." All of those things are admittedly lovely.

Kinzua Bridge is the only state park in McKean County, and for that reason I've been trying to make myself like the place for a few years. I mean, it is at least an outpost of the awesome PADCNR, right? And yet, I never did like it for a variety of reasons: 1) In the summer, there are always swarms of loud Harleys there; 2) in every season, there are always two or three colonies of trailers and modern industrial equipment all over the place, as if they're going to get right to work rebuilding the bridge; 3) the "General Kane Trail" is a short loop that follows an ugly utility swath through an uninteresting woodlot; 4) much of the forest there is tree carnage from the same 2003 tornado that destroyed the bridge.

And yet, today I was surprised and happy to discover that there are things at Kinzua Bridge State Park to enjoy. You have to go in the dead of winter, when the post-tornado jaggers are buried under the snow and the Harley dudes are all gone. And you have to bushwack out away from the bridge, crossing the awesome path of the tornado's wreckage, and into the rock cities on the opposite wall of the valley. That trek will be described in the next posting. For now, here's a photo of the fallen bridge. (As always, click on any photo to enlarge it.)